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Yoane Wissa scored his first Newcastle United goal on his first start in the 2-1 win over Fulham.
Yoane Wissa is up and running at Newcastle United after marking his full debut with his first goal.
Wissa opened the scoring in the 10th minute as the Magpies beat Fulham 2-1 at St James’ Park on Wednesday to advance into the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, where they will face Manchester City over two legs.
The 29-year-old joined from Brentford for £55million on September 1 but had to wait three months before making his debut after sustaining a posterior cruciate ligament injury on international duty with DR Congo.
Eddie Howe ‘really pleased for Yoane Wissa after first Newcastle United start and goal
Wissa made substitute appearances against Burnley, Bayer Leverkusen and Sunderland before getting the go-ahead to start last night. The striker still isn’t 100% fit according to Eddie Howe, but his 70 minutes against Fulham is a big step in the right direction.
“Yeah, really pleased for him,” said Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe. “I've seen the journey that he's gone on here in a really short period of time. Whenever you go to a new club and you're injured straight away, that's a difficult one because your first experience is in the treatment room.
“I experienced that as a player myself and it was really, really tough to feel connected with the club, so it's only when you play I think you really, truly build that connection and I'm delighted to start him today.
“I thought he played very well. He isn't 100% fit in my opinion at the moment, but he'll get there at some stage soon. But the goal, as you know, for a striker to score so soon into his first game, his first start, is a great tonic for him and for us.”
Will Yoane Wissa start for Newcastle United v Chelsea?
Howe now has a big decision heading into Saturday’s 12:30pm kick-off against Chelsea in the Premier League with both Wissa and £69m club-record signing Nick Woltemade to choose from up top.
Wissa was only supposed to play around an hour against Fulham, but his performance levels convinced Howe to leave him on the pitch a little while longer. Woltemade replaced then replaced him in the 72nd minute.
Howe added: “Yeah, he's played his heart out. I've probably left him on the pitch slightly longer than I initially planned to because I thought he looked good. And in that moment, the team was performing well. We had good momentum in the game. I didn't want to break it. So, we'll wait and see.
“I think we now have a position, touch wood, where we have the two fit strikers, two established strikers that we wanted this season to sort of spearhead our attack and to interchange and use in different moments. So, we've finally got that.
“Hopefully, they can both remain fit. They're going to be key players for us.”
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